Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Execution Of Troy Davis

I
suspect there are people out there who would oppose the Death Penalty in any
case, and those are the people I consider the most consistent. This isn’t to
say they are right or wrong, but at least they don’t have the hairs to split
the rest of us seem to enjoy taking an axe to in our spare time. There are
those who would not oppose it as much were it only meted out justly and equally,
which it is not, and those people have solid constitutional ground to stand
upon. The odds of a poor black man being
put to death are many times greater than that of a wealthy white man. It is a
racially biased, class considered, gender centered, and arbitrary form of
punishment which by its very nature is unusual if not cruel. This is the case
against the Death Penalty and it is neither morally bereft, nor is it philosophically
anemic.

Yet the
use of execution is not necessarily punishment. The word punishment implies that through
aversion therapy some behavior will be modified, in theory, and therefore we as
a society have a right to impose it upon those who break the law. No one has
yet to learn anything from being executed but at the same time, no one who has
ever been executed has ever broken the law again either. Those who are executed
have their behavior modified to the extreme and no one can deny the efficiency of
execution when it comes to reducing recidivism. Theodore Bundy will never kill
again. Gary Ridgeway still has that capacity as does Charles Manson. Execution
would still serve the greater good in the two latter cases as well as it has
the former.

But in
all things human there is the problem of politics. The recent execution of Troy
Davis was, in my opinion, was one purely of a political nature. No one, not the
Governor, not the Board of Paroles and Pardons, not the Georgia Supreme Court
and not even the SCOTUS would dare show mercy to a condemned cop killer this
close to an election year. No one, not one person running for office endorsed
anything but death. In a case where nearly the entire argument for conviction
was based on testimony from witnesses nearly all recanted. This isn’t uncommon
in such cases because it’s a popular thing for former witnesses to recant,
whether it be real or not, there is no way to trust someone’s testimony who admits
to lying. That said, if the testimony cannot be trusted at all from those who
recanted then the only weight that can be given is to those whose story has not
changed. There were witnesses who did not recant, and for reasons that escape
me, the testimony of those people was not taken into consideration by those
pressing for the life of Troy Davis.

This is a
case where there was no murder weapon found. This is a case where the accused
steadfastly maintained his innocence. Yet this is also a case where the accused,
Troy Davis, was linked to an earlier shooting and the ballistics in the murder
case matched those in the earlier shooting case. Davis was not, as some
maintain, a victim of an overzealous police force out to pin the murder on the
first person they found walking down the street. Troy Davis was no stranger to
trouble with the law, and no stranger to violence.

So which
way does the pressure lie? Is Troy Davis guilty of first degree murder of a law
enforcement officer or simply a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time,
scheduled to die far too close to an election year for there to be any hope
that he’ll see justice? Barring a confession from the man Davis claimed killed
the officer, we may never know and we might not know then. The real question is
why was Troy Davis executed and if who he was, what he was, and who he killed
part of the equation.

Are
those who kill law enforcement officers any worse than those who kill
housewives or school teachers? If Troy Davis would have killed a meter reader
would be have been executed? Again, in an election year there is no one holding
office who is going to show any sort of clemency to a condemned cop killer.
Davis had the ill fortune for his appeal process to grind to a halt in a
partisan battle for every single vote. For my part, if we are going to send men
and women into harm’s way in uniform, be it law enforcement or battle, we ought
to take special measures to protect them. In this case, I would have to say who
the victim was mattered very much indeed.

In the
end, execution is still here and Troy Davis is dead. I think he was guilty and I
think that in any other year he gets a new trial or his sentence commuted. I
think it unwise for the government to execute someone with this much doubt
hanging over the outcome. In all things human, politics will rear its very ugly
head and the execution of Troy Davis may push the death penalty to a new low as
far as those who believe it ought to be applied in some cases. The high ground
is still being held by those who think it ought to be abolished in every case.
But those who believe there is a place for it still hold the better part of
power. These are the people who know that in an election years, putting a poor
black man to death for killing a police officer is a good strategic move. The
fact that they are right, and granting Troy Davis any sort of mercy at all
would have been political suicide says much more about us than the execution of
Troy Davis says about him.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Facebook Badge

Donate To The Dogfood Fund

About Me

The Non Disclaimer

My writing reflects the things I see, think, and experience, and those things in my past that have led me to be me. It is not always pretty, it is not always funny, and no one has ever made mention of my life as a Disney Movie. If sex, drugs, profanity, or a general irreverence for all things religious somehow offends you, well, there are other blogs which will satisfy your need for self assurance.